Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell

MonticelloJan. 13. 23.

were it necessary to give up either the Primaries or the University, I would rather
abandon the last. because it is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened,
than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance. this last is the
most dangerous state in which a nation can be. the nations and governments of Europe
are so many proofs of it.